Literality and intention

Excerpt from A matter of gain in translation? by Suresh Menon

All translations are a compromise between two mutually exclusive exigencies – fidelity to the literality of the words and fidelity to the literary intention of the author. I can’t remember who said that, but it is well put. Vladimir Nabokov, for example, belonged to literal school, and his translation of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, therefore, strips the original of all poetry. Vikram Seth, whose technique in Golden Gate was inspired by Pushkin, pays a tribute to the English translator Sir Charles Johnston with several lines devoted to him. He says, ‘Pushkin’s masterpiece/ In Johnston’s luminous translation’

In a collection of essays on the subject of translation, Mouse or Rat ? Umberto Eco speaks of translation as negotiation (that is, in fact, the book’s sub-title), arguing that the negotiation is not just between words but between cultures. The Italian ‘ratto’ is ‘rat’ while ‘topo’, he says can be either ‘rat’ or ‘mouse’, and a shriek followed by a cry of ‘Un toppo’ is acceptable in an Italian translation of Shakespeare. But in a translation of Albert Camus’ La Peste, the rat presages the plague, and therefore only ‘ratto’ will do.

Susan Sontag has mentioned three versions of the modern idea of translation – translation as explanation (the translator’s mission is clarification, enlightenment), translation as adaptation (to write another version), and translation as improvement (Baudelaire’s translation of Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry is considered an improvement on the original and some say, perhaps more controversially, so is the German translation of Shakespeare by Schlegel-Tieck).

Translation is an art and despite Eco’s efforts at giving language a mathematical base, art is often imprecise. Publishers prefer to make everything as familiar and unthreatening as possible. This is a commercial decision, and has nothing to do with the flavour of the original or the way it is captured in a translation. Some writers take it upon themselves to help a translator while others like Marquez see it as a different discipline altogether and leave everything to the translator.

Can there be an untranslatable work? I would imagine Finnegan’s Wake is untranslatable, as is poetry in many cases. Poetry is what is lost in translation, said Robert Frost. Perhaps, at the hands of a great translator, the reverse is also true: poetry is what is gained in translation.